Received a pop-up to update to New ZA + AV,which versions of ZA Free to download?

I just want to vent.

A week or two ago, my son got prompted for the new ZA antivirus software. He answered "Yes", even though he already has another antivirus software on his PC. He claims that it did not warn him that you cannot have two antivirus softwares on the PC before it installed. I don't know if he is correct about the lack of forewarning (I thought he knew better), but I would have expected ZA to either disable the other AV software, or refuse to install the ZA software while other AV software was running.

With both ZA antivirus and Avast running together, his PC was almost completely unusable. We managed to get his PC fixed by booting into safe mode and first removing Avast. We couldn't remove nor disable ZA until removing Avast first. Then, after Avast was gone, we removed ZA, and re-installed Avast. We did not re-install ZA on his PC.

A few days later, my PC prompted me for the update, including the new AV software from ZA. I clicked the button that said "No thanks". It proceeded to install an update to ZA. I assumed it would just update the free ZA firewall. When the update finished, it asked me to reboot the computer. This is unusual with ZA (I don't recall a ZA update ever asking me to reboot before), but I rebooted the PC.

My PC shut down successfully, but then refused to boot. I messed with it for quite a while, before deciding that it was simply easier to restore from a backup that I made a few months earlier. I wasted several hours of my time due to this update.

I'm really not a happy camper now. I've decided to uninstall ZA from all of my home PC's due to this fiasco. I'm an IT professional. I've been using/administering Windows PC's for 20+ years. I always liked ZA for home use because of the way it catches outbound network connections... but I'm just furious that an update did this to me. I'm planning to setup Windows Firewall to block outbound connections unless specifically allowed. Bye Bye ZA!

Last edited by fax; June 6th, 2012 at 01:38 AM.
Reason: Revised title to better hint to origin of the problem and impact.

Just One, Not Two -- Never use two software Firewalls at the same time. Completely uninstall one before installing another. Use the vendor's uninstall utility or if not available, use the Windows XP/Win7 add/remove software tool in the control panel.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Just One, Not Two -- Never use two Anti-virus products at the same time. (even if one is disabled) Completely uninstall one before installing another. Use the vendor's uninstall utility or if not available, use the Windows XP/Win7 add/remove software tool in the control panel.

Last edited by GeorgeV; August 22nd, 2012 at 06:20 PM.
Reason: updated